


Limbo

by Lunaraen



Category: Minecraft Story Mode
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Memory Related, Waiting For Update
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-03
Updated: 2016-03-03
Packaged: 2018-05-24 13:02:12
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,207
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6154606
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lunaraen/pseuds/Lunaraen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In the cold and dark, he waits. They all wait.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Limbo

Jesse opened their eyes, one more slowly than the other, and looked up at a familiar inky sky with no stars.

It took a minute for the sleep to leave their system.

They blearily twisted their wrist as they took note of their short hair and certain anatomical features.

Guy today then.

Day after day it went like this. Wake up, try not to reel from the new memories, sit around looking for something that never came, fall asleep.

Sometimes they were already collected old memories with a new spin here or there. There were fewer and fewer things surprising him, the more days he waited.

As for here…

It was pitch black and lit up all at once. There were no sources of light, but he could see everything in clear detail.

He’d learned not to think too hard about it. Like the rest of the void, it was a confusing jumbled mess.

They hadn’t had to wait this long before, he knew that. Dimly aware of it as there was another mark carved into the inside of his mind.

You’d think they’d at least be kept up to date. Somebody, something-

Notch himself wouldn’t surprise Jesse at this point.

But nope. Left in the dark, they always were. Didn’t know squat until they were let back out to their world, and sometime later were shoved back in here for the whole thing to start all over again.

After the last one-

Jesse walked faster, feet hitting invisible ground.

It was one of the few rare times he’d been happy to be stuck in the barren plane.

It made so much sense.

He’d made the wrong choice. The next time he woke up, Reuben would be beside him and he’d have memories of doing the right thing.

His friends had been less enthused. Petra had pointed out that the last decision that involved someone’s death and had changed was with Ellegaard and Magnus, who switched between being very dead one day to very not the next. One of them always remained dead.

If Reuben lived, who was most likely to die in his place?

His owner.

Jesse hadn’t cared. He had plenty memories of dying, and yet every day he was alive. The others never reported him suddenly being gone.

It had made him lightheaded, sick with delirious happiness. He’d felt so cocky.

He could die, but it wasn’t permanent. They couldn’t kill him.

Even if they could, he’d be back. He’d have one of his best friends back.

Except that Reuben hadn’t shown up the next day. Or the next. Or the day after.

It wasn’t just a rare outcome, it was impossible.

It became clear that, no matter what he had done, anything that was different in his actions, decisions, or form, Reuben would end up dead in the end.

There was a special kind of hopeless for that.

The kind that sucked the life out of you.

He was fairly certain it had been yesterday, but what with having nothing to do and no way to keep time, which made their waits feel all the longer, everything ran together. It very well could have been a week ago.

She -He was pretty sure he’d been a lady then- had been absolutely heartbroken. Memories of neglecting or even being outright mean to Reuben didn’t spring up often.

And generally, when things like that did, he adopted the mindset that came with them. If he remembered kicking Lukas out of their shelter for the night, which he couldn’t recall in much detail now, so what? Lukas himself had admitted he was out of line.

Once he had thought “So what? Reuben was only a pig.”.

Not then.

Jesse had very much regretted everything she’d done.

Because she woke up both with vivid recollections of ignoring Reuben as well as the knowledge that he was gone. There was no one to apologize to. He wasn’t coming back.

That kept popping up, refusing to leave.

Jesse tried his hardest to disregard it anyway. He wanted to think of something, anything else-

Like the others.

How their memories worked was both more reliable and more unpredictable.

A few times he’d woken up to being hugged, whether it was a bear hug from Axel or a gentle one from Olivia, the last thing they remembered being him dying. But not a day went by that he was actually dead, that they’d have to wait.

Lukas was odd too. Some days Jesse wanted to kill him, and other days Lukas was his new best friend. Lukas’s feelings changed to, from being indifferent to Jesse to hating his guts to being all smiles.

As for his friends-

Sometimes Jesse felt guilty. He’d kept Lukas back, when he would’ve found his friends. Other times he was angry, furious at him for abandoning them for what could’ve been suicide.

Right now he felt tired.

Petra and Gabriel’s stories switched too, but at least it was better now than it had been before.

Back then one of them simply would disappear, the other remaining weakened and ill.

Jesse hadn’t seen Soren since he’d run away, the coward.

_It wasn’t that he didn’t see the unmistakable curly orange hair that stood out among where the old order rested. It was more that that was a battle he wasn’t willing to fight, didn’t have the energy to care about._

Jesse stopped walking, landing on his knees as he fell to the ground. They didn’t get hungry here, or thirsty. He didn’t get tired.

It would’ve been nice, to feel alive.

He didn’t recognize himself most days, because who he was changed with wind. There was this constant stream from day to day, but it was more like he was storing away someone else’s thoughts. The only him he could be sure of was the one the developed in little pieces from the actions of whatever Jesse he was each time in this space, and it wasn’t much.

He pretended those weren’t tears in his eyes, that he didn’t hear the approaching footsteps.

That he didn’t recognize the familiar gaits, the sounds of soft, quick paces followed by loud, more leisurely ones.

That he didn’t feel them both wrapping him up in a warm hug, the aromas of redstone and gunpowder filling his nose, even if the scents should’ve been long gone.

The big, calloused hand that was rubbing circles in his back, the silky, curly hair pressed up against the side of his face.

_He knew he changed the most, knew how easy it would have been to step back and pay no attention to him while they went about their own business. Knew that some days he sure as hell had earned it._

He didn’t deserve them. Never had, never would.

Jesse’s shoving had been weak to begin with. Choking back what he wasn’t too proud to admit was a sob, he stopped, flinging his arms around them.

Notch knew how long they stayed like that, listening to each other’s breathing and heartbeats. It was a melody Jesse wanted to never end.

It had always been the three of them.

It would be until some cruel act of fate decided to take them away too.


End file.
